Midnight Chicken: & Other Recipes Worth Living For


Ella Risbridger - 2019
    Or, at least, you'll flick through these pages and find recipes so inviting that you'll head straight for the kitchen: roast garlic and tomato soup, uplifting chilli-lemon spaghetti, charred leek lasagne, squash skillet pie, spicy fish finger sandwiches or burnt-butter brownies. It's the kind of cooking you can do a little bit drunk. It's the kind of cooking that is probably better if you've got a bottle of wine open, and a hunk of bread to mop up the sauce.But if you sit down with this book and a cup of tea (or that glass of wine), you'll also discover that it's an annotated list of things worth living for: a manifesto of moments worth living for. Because there was a time when, for Ella Risbridger, the world had become overwhelming. Sounds were too loud, colours were too bright, everyone moved too fast. One night she found herself lying on her kitchen floor, wondering if she would ever get up - and it was the thought of a chicken, of roasting it, and of eating it, that got her to her feet, and made her want to be alive.This is a cookbook to make you fall in love with the world again

Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home


Jessica Fechtor - 2015
      At 28, Jessica Fechtor was happily immersed in graduate school and her young marriage, and thinking about starting a family. Then one day, she went for a run and an aneurysm burst in her brain. She nearly died. She lost her sense of smell, the sight in her left eye, and was forced to the sidelines of the life she loved. Jessica’s journey to recovery began in the kitchen as soon as she was able to stand at the stovetop and stir. There, she drew strength from the restorative power of cooking and baking. Written with intelligence, humor, and warmth, Stir is a heartfelt examination of what it means to nourish and be nourished."  Woven throughout the narrative are 27 recipes for dishes that comfort and delight. For readers of M.F.K.Fisher, Molly Wizenberg, and Tamar Adler, as well as Oliver Sacks, Jill Bolte Taylor, and Susannah Cahalan, Stir is sure to inspire, and send you straight to the kitchen

America's Best Lost Recipes


Cook's Country Magazine - 2007
    The result is this collection of more than 120 old-fashioned recipes that deserve a place in home kitchens today.Americas Test Kitchen

Momofuku


David Chang - 2009
    A once-unrecognizable word, it's now synonymous with the award-winning restaurants of the same name in New York City: Momofuku Noodle Bar, Ssäm Bar, Ko, and Milk Bar. Chef David Chang has single-handedly revolutionized cooking in America with his use of bold Asian flavors and impeccable ingredients, his mastery of the humble ramen noodle, and his thorough devotion to pork.  Momofuku is both the story and the recipes behind the cuisine that has changed the modern-day culinary landscape. Chang relays with candor the tale of his unwitting rise to superstardom, which, though wracked with mishaps, happened at light speed. And the dishes shared in this book are coveted by all who've dined—or yearned to—at any Momofuku location (yes, the pork buns are here). This is a must-read for anyone who truly enjoys food.

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat


Bee Wilson - 2012
    It can also mean the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks.Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious - or at least edible. Tools shape what we eat, but they have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. Technology in the kitchen does not just mean the Pacojets and sous-vide of the modernist kitchen. It can also mean the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks. In Consider the Fork, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson provides a wonderful and witty tour of the evolution of cooking around the world, revealing the hidden history of everyday objects we often take for granted. Knives - perhaps our most important gastronomic tool - predate the discovery of fire, whereas the fork endured centuries of ridicule before gaining widespread acceptance; pots and pans have been around for millennia, while plates are a relatively recent invention. Many once-new technologies have become essential elements of any well-stocked kitchen - mortars and pestles, serrated knives, stainless steel pots, refrigerators. Others have proved only passing fancies, or were supplanted by better technologies; one would be hard pressed now to find a water-powered egg whisk, a magnet-operated spit roaster, a cider owl, or a turnspit dog. Although many tools have disappeared from the modern kitchen, they have left us with traditions, tastes, and even physical characteristics that we would never have possessed otherwise. Blending history, science, and anthropology, Wilson reveals how our culinary tools and tricks came to be, and how their influence has shaped modern food culture. The story of how we have tamed fire and ice and wielded whisks, spoons, and graters, all for the sake of putting food in our mouths, Consider the Fork is truly a book to savor.

La Tartine Gourmande: Gluten-Free Recipes for an Inspired Life


Béatrice Peltre - 2012
    Welcome to a world where flavors are collected as souvenirs and shared as heirlooms, and where the dishes we create are expressions of our joie de vivre. With nearly 100 recipes and charming anecdotes, La Tartine Gourmande takes you on a journey, not only through the meals of the day but around the world, as Béa revisits her inspiration for each dish. Though her style is largely inspired by her native France, you’ll find a wide array of influences as she brings creative twists to classic recipes—all while remaining effortlessly healthful and balanced. The gluten-free recipes use whole grains like quinoa, millet, buckwheat, and nut flours, lending surprising depth of flavor and nutrients, even to desserts. You’ll taste the best of her adventures abroad from Denmark to New Zealand, her childhood in the French countryside, and the simple wholesomeness of her charmed life at home in Boston. Your mouth will water as Béa recalls the oeufs en cocotte (“baked eggs”) that she ate as a child after collecting fresh eggs from her grandmother’s hen house. Her recipe for this classic dish now includes leeks, spinach, smoked salmon, and cumin. Or try the buttermilk, lemon, and poppyseed pancakes she made every morning in Crete when she was pregnant—they’re now her little daughter Lulu’s favorite. Warm up with a bowl of celeriac, white sweet potato, and apple soup, a dish inspired by a chilly day of horseback riding in New Zealand. You’ll love sharing the saffron-flavored crab and watercress soufflé, a delicious homage to one of her mother’s best-loved Christmas traditions. And since most would agree that “a meal without dessert is like wearing only one shoe,” try the apple, rhubarb, and strawberry nutty crumble, served with vanilla-flavored custard, just the way her husband’s Irish grandfather preferred. Lush styling and photography combined with sweet stories, foodie tidbits, and fresh and original recipes make La Tartine Gourmande perfect for those who love food and the way our lives play around it. This is not just a book about cooking, but a warm invitation to share in the beauty and simple pleasures of a life with food at the heart of it.

Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook


Isa Chandra Moskowitz - 2007
    You'll find 25 new dishes and updates throughout for more than 250 recipes (everything from basics to desserts), stunning color photos, and tips for making your kitchen a vegan paradise. All the recipes in Veganomicon have been thoroughly kitchen-tested to ensure user-friendliness and amazing results. Veganomicon also includes meals for all occasions and soy-free, gluten-free, and low-fat options, plus quick recipes that make dinner a snap.

The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen


Jacques Pépin - 2003
    Soon Jacques is caught up in the hurly-burly action of his mother's café, where he proves a natural. He endures a literal trial by fire and works his way up the ladder in the feudal system of France's most famous restaurant, finally becoming Charles de Gaulle's personal chef, watching the world being refashioned from the other side of the kitchen door.When he comes to America, Jacques immediately falls in with a small group of as-yet-unknown food lovers, including Craig Claiborne, James Beard, and Julia Child, whose adventures redefine American food. Through it all, Jacques proves himself to be a master of the American art of reinvention: earning a graduate degree from Columbia University, turning down a job as John F. Kennedy's chef to work at Howard Johnson's, and, after a near-fatal car accident, switching careers once again to become a charismatic leader in the revolution that changed the way Americans approached food. Included as well are approximately forty all-time favorite recipes created during the course of a career spanning nearly half a century, from his mother's utterly simple cheese soufflé to his wife's pork ribs and red beans.The Apprentice is the poignant and sometimes funny tale of a boy's coming of age. Beyond that, it is the story of America's culinary awakening and the transformation of food from an afterthought to a national preoccupation.

Antoni in the Kitchen


Antoni Porowski - 2019
    With appealing vulnerability, he shows cooks of all levels how to become more confident and casual in the kitchen. The verve and naturalness of his approach earned raves from Food & Wine and Bon Appétit to GQ and the New York Times, which noted his dishes prove that “sometimes simple is anything but simplistic.” Some of the recipes in this book are weeknight healthyish meals, while others are perfect for off-the-cuff entertaining. Visual stunners, they’re often composed of fewer than five ingredients. Whether Bastardized Easy Ramen; Malaysian Chili Shrimp; Roasted Carrots with Carrot-Top Pesto; or Salty Lemon Squares, all are visual stunners and can be carried off with panache, even by beginners.

The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation


David Kamp - 2006
    Kamp, a writer and editor for GQ and Vanity Fair, chronicles the amazing transformation from the overcooked vegetables and scary gelatin salads of yore to the current heyday of free-range chickens, extra-virgin olive oil, Whole Foods, Starbucks, and that breed of human known as the foodie.

Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours


Kim Boyce - 2010
    But Kim Boyce truly has reinvented the wheel with this collection of 75 recipes that feature 12 different kinds of whole-grain flours, from amaranth to teff, proving that whole-grain baking is more about incredible flavors and textures than anything else.   When Boyce, a former pastry chef at Spago and Campanile, left the kitchen to raise a family, she was determined to create delicious cakes, muffins, breads, tarts, and cookies that her kids (and everybody else) would love. She began experimenting with whole-grain flours, and Good to the Grain is the happy result. The cookbook proves that whole-grain baking can be easily done with a pastry chef’s flair. Plus, there’s a chapter on making jams, compotes, and fruit butters with seasonal fruits that help bring out the wonderfully complex flavors of whole-grain flours.Praise for Good to the Grain: “Boyce started playing with a variety of flours when she took a break from restaurant kitchens and wrote her first cookbook, Good to the Grain, a whole grains baking bible that won a coveted James Beard Foundation Award this year.” —O Magazine

Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food


Nik Sharma - 2018
    Season features 100 of the most delicious and intriguing recipes you've ever tasted, plus 270 of the most beautiful photographs ever seen in a cookbook. Here Nik, beloved curator of the award-winning food blog A Brown Table, shares a treasury of ingredients, techniques, and flavors that combine in a way that's both familiar and completely unexpected. These are recipes that take a journey all the way from India by way of the American South to California. It's a personal journey that opens new vistas in the kitchen, including new methods and integrated by a marvelous use of spices. Even though these are dishes that will take home cooks and their guests by surprise, rest assured there's nothing intimidating here. Season, like Nik, welcomes everyone to the table!

The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchens


Lynne Rossetto Kasper - 1999
    Written by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, author of The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food (winner of both the James Beard and Julia Child/IACP Cookbook-of-the-Year Awards), it is every bit the equal of its celebrated predecessor.Read its exuberant pages, eat its lusty dishes, and you enter a landscape vibrant with rural life. You are one with the terrain. In some sense, you are home. That, of course, is the miracle of Italy—no matter where we come from, we want to be a part of it. And the miracle of The Italian Country Table is its ability to take us there.And what a journey! You will never be as impatient to get into your kitchen as when you are planning a meal from this book. Two hundred recipes, personally collected from home cooks throughout the length and breadth of Italy, will keep calling you back.Who could resist the “Gatto” di Patate, a mashed-potato “lasagna” from the Neapolitan countryside? Or a Tuscan Mountain Supper of warm beans tossed with an herbed tomato sauce and eaten with tart greens? Or Pasta of the Grape Harvest, a Sicilian dish of grapes, red wine, orange zest, spices, pistachios and linguine? Or Chocolate Polenta Pudding Cake?Kasper, host of Public Radio's The Splendid Table, is a master teacher who thinks about cooking in a way that is radically distinctive. Her chapter on tomatoes and tomato sauces, a treasure by itself, will change the way you think about them—and cook them—forever. Her guide to buying and saucing pasta contains more useful facts than many books that devote themselves to pasta exclusively.Kasper, the grandchild of Italian immigrants, describes herself as someone with a love of lingering “in places where life changes slowly.” This personal book abounds with stories of artisans, farmers and family. It is a portrait of Italian country life.Where you read The Italian Country Table, cook from it or use it to plan a trip (there is an appendix that lists guest farms, country hotels, restaurants and museums), you have only to turn its pages to be transported to a rustic Italy that few of us know, but all of us long for.-16 pages of finished dishes in full color-50 black-and-white photographs of country life

Curtis Stone's What's For Dinner? Simple Recipes for Every Night of the Week


Curtis Stone - 2013
    Curtis Stone, host of Top Chef Masters and Around the World in 80 Plates, provides a culinary road map of time-saving kitchen solutions and delicious dishes for every day of the week.

A History of Food in 100 Recipes


William Sitwell - 2012
    But do we know where these everyday recipes came from, who invented them, and using what techniques? This book provides a colourful and entertaining journey through the history of cuisine, celebrating the world's greatest dishes.